M.

José Flores Lahoz

Betrayal by Harold PINTER

(edition left in the photocopier)

First presented in London on 15 November 1978

Dramatis personae

Emma: She is a woman of thirty-eight. Self-confident. Middle class. She runs an Art
Gallery.
Jerry: A man of forty years old. He feels a bit guilty from betraying his best friend.
Middle class. He is a book publisher.
Robert: A man of forty years old. He is married with Emma. He is also a book
publisher.

Plot

It is the story of an affair seven years long between two persons which were married
with somebody else. Emma is married with Robert and has the affair with Jerry, who
is works with her husband and also the best friend of Robert. Jerry is married with
Judith. It gives us images of this affair going back in time. The play starts in the
present time in 1977 and it finishes nine years earlier in 1968. He shows when the
affair started, 1968, when they has the best moments, from 1971 to 1974, and when it
finished, 1975. The play starts in a pub. Emma, two years after their affair has
managed to meet Jerry. She has just found out that her husband, Robert has an affair
with another woman. Their marriage is about to end. She wants to speak about it with
Jerry. In the following scenes we travel to the past and through their romance from the
beginning.

Where it happens

It all happens in many different spaces. Scene one starts in a pub. Scene two in Jerry’s
house study. Scene three in that flat in Wessex Grove where Emma and Jerry meet.
Scene four takes place in Robert and Emma’s living room. Scene five happens in a
Hotel room in Venice. Scene six goes on in the flat at Wessex Grove again. Scene
seven comes about in a restaurant. Scene eight back in the flat and finally scene nine
in the bedroom at Robert and Emma’s house.

Time
It keeps going from the present to the past. Till we end up about nine years earlier.

Personal opinion

I have found it entertaining and also interesting because how difficult can be love
relations. We can see the different ways of understanding unfaithfulness.